


Only with the Void

by mstigergun



Category: Naruto
Genre: M/M, Past Sasuke/Naruto, post-Tenchi Bridge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-19
Updated: 2015-02-19
Packaged: 2018-03-13 20:28:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3395345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mstigergun/pseuds/mstigergun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A peace offering, a mission he's assigned himself, a teammate adrift. Sai tries to set things right after Tenchi Bridge. </p><p>  <i>He assigns himself a mission.</i></p><p>  <i>The thought is a novel one when he first entertains it, but it is also persistent. The parameters of what he is expected to accomplish allow him a certain… flexibility. Certainly, a shinobi must always be able to respond to unusual circumstances when on a mission. Observation and proactive response are key to success.</i></p><p>  <i>This mission, however, requires a degree of initiative that feels unfamiliar. It isn’t an unpleasant feeling, but it itches. Almost.</i></p><p>  <i>Sai must make choices. This is what he chooses.</i></p><p>For <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/alestar">alestar</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only with the Void

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alestar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alestar/gifts).



> Written for International Fanworks Day 2015. Prompted by the lovely [alestar](http://archiveofourown.org/users/alestar), who just wanted anything for this pairing. It was a steep learning curve for me and I hope I've done these two justice. There wasn't a whole lot to study! Still, this was super satisfying to write -- Sai's voice is so clipped and precise that he forced me to prune away my inherent wordiness. Also, hello adorable little rude ninja. Where have you been all my life?
> 
> Here is what you need to know to situate this fic: it's post-Tenchi Bridge Reconnaissance arc and I'm assuming past Naruto/Sasuke, which has been totally and utterly stomped on by Sasuke's assertion that there's nothing between them now (okay, no more "friendship" but I'm choosing to read that as "'friendship'"). I've thus made Naruto a little more bitter and hopeless in this than he is canonically -- let's assume a broken heart has temporarily beaten him down. He'll spring back to his usual self after he spends some time wallowing in his dark apartment on his bed of take-away containers. And, you know, maybe with a little help.

_*_

_I say my name, and it is as though I were chanting my own dirge. … Language can begin only with the void; no fullness, no certainty can ever speak; something essential is lacking in anyone who expresses himself. Negation is tied to language. When I first begin, I do not speak in order to say something; rather, a nothing demands to speak, nothing speaks, nothing finds its being in speech…_ (Maurice Blanchot, Literature and the Right to Death)

*

He assigns himself a mission.

The thought is a novel one when he first entertains it, but it is also persistent. The parameters of what he is expected to accomplish allow him a certain… flexibility. Certainly, a shinobi must always be able to respond to unusual circumstances when on a mission. Observation and proactive response are key to success.

This mission, however, requires a degree of initiative that feels unfamiliar. It isn’t an unpleasant feeling, but it itches. Almost.

Sai must make choices. This is what he chooses.

He walks the streets. The sky overhead stretches as dark as ink, the narrow, crowded alleyways a profusion of colour and texture. He can create a similar effect using layers upon layers of tissue-thin paper with a brush and epoxy. With enough time, Sai can build a world on the page as deep and varied as Konoha’s night market. He might use gold leaf to mimic the strings of yellow lanterns hanging over the stall that marks his destination. Smudges of crackling ink could suggest smoke. With enough variation in technique, he might adequately capture the chaos.

Should the opportunity present itself, Sai would not mind trying.

For now, his mission awaits.

He carries the plastic bag in one hand and it bumps against his leg as he walks. Each step leads him farther and farther away from the scene still impressed on his mind. It is with thoughts of brush selection that he climbs the stairs to Naruto’s apartment and knocks on the door.

He knows enough to knock, though he can identify several ways he might enter without being noticed. This isn’t that kind of mission.

The door cracks open just wide enough to reveal Naruto. Sai’s eyes trace his body: his teammate is bedraggled, bare-footed, eyes rimmed with red and skin flushed. His hair is normally a mess; it now looks as if a bird has been nesting among the blond tufts.

“You’ve been crying,” Sai says. “You look awful.”

Naruto’s eyes narrow. They’re glassy.

He doesn’t close the door, however, and his frown doesn’t crease his face as much as it might. He inhales once, a deep, sucking breath.

“You brought ramen,” Naruto says.

“I did.” Sai offers the bag.

It’s gone from his grip with such speed that Sai spares a moment’s reflection for Naruto’s innate abilities. A sufficient enough prize and his prodigious talent becomes clear. If only their training exercises warranted the same enthusiasm as ramen.

Naruto shuffles back inside the dark apartment. He leaves the door open.

Sai understands that this is an invitation.

The apartment is disgusting.

“Your apartment is disgusting,” Sai says.

Naruto doesn’t look back at Sai. He shoves empty food containers to one side of the kitchen table, sitting down heavily and cracking open the take-away container.

Sai uses the time to scan the dark room. The faucet drips. One of the bulbs overhead flickers. The counter is crowded. Naruto has pinned a photograph of Team Seven as they were on the fridge. They look very young, their faces rounder, their eyes larger. None of them look weary – but that will come.

Once he’s had several mouthfuls, Naruto stops. “You don’t have to stay. Sakura doesn’t even come in – she _won’t_ , she says. _On principle_. Something about _concern for her own well-being_.”

When he speaks, he gestures with his chopsticks. Sharp, abrupt movements.

He’s frustrated, Sai notes. Defensive.

Very well. Sai mimics Naruto’s earlier movements, clearing off a cluttered section of the table. He tidily moves sticky styrofoam containers to the tower at the far end of the surface, nesting empty cups inside one another. When he’s cleared a space in front of a chair, he sits down across from from Naruto.

Naruto watches him the entire time, slowly feeding more noodles into his mouth. Chewing thoughtlessly. Mechanically.

That’s something Sai understands, a shared point of reference. An unusual discovery in someone who is so often the embodied opposite of Sai’s instinctive execution of tasks. Of control and precision.

He feels a line form between his eyebrows. An… unusual feeling when it happens unbidden, skin creasing in reaction to external events rather than in deliberate mimicry.

“What,” Naruto huffs around a mouthful of ramen.

“You’re not yourself,” Sai says.

“Well, everything sucks. Guess I should have known better than to expect a _traitor_ to change his tune.” Another mouthful of noodles. He shoves them past his lips in what is almost a violent motion.

It’s much as Sai expected. Which is why he assigned himself this mission.

“You’re a good friend,” Sai says, because it’s what Naruto will want to hear.

He receives a dark look in return. “Right.” He tilts the bowl up and slurps down the remaining broth. “Right,” he repeats when he sets the container down and shoves it into the pile with the others. “So, you’re here.” A change of topic. Naruto knows this game better than Sai, so Sai will follow where his teammate leads.

“I’m here,” Sai says. He smiles.

“You’re a weird kind of guy,” Naruto says after a moment.

It’s not inaccurate, so Sai nods.

“I dunno,” yawns Naruto, stretching. “You brought me ramen. That’s pretty decent. You haven’t threatened to _report the whole building to the health inspector_ if I don’t clean up, so that puts you one up on Sakura. What did you want?”

Sai anticipated Naruto might ask him this question, even though he hoped the ramen would serve as an adequate excuse.

Expressing concern is, Sai has learned, an important component of building relationships.

“I was worried about you,” Sai offers.

“You were worried about me.”

Again, it’s not necessarily inaccurate. Sai realizes that their last mission compromised Naruto’s emotional state. Without the hope of Sasuke’s redemption driving him, Naruto has fallen into disarray. He is tangled in a knot of emotions that hamper his efficacy. If Team Seven is to succeed, if Sai is going to succeed, Naruto needs to untangle himself. To find his footing and stand upright again.

He needs a replacement. Remove the pillar from the base of a tower and it falls. Replace it and the tower stays upright.

“Yes,” Sai says. “I was worried.” He reaches out with one hand and rests it gently over Naruto’s, on the dirty table in the dirtier apartment.

Naruto freezes, the idle and thoughtless movements that make him appear restless grinding to a halt. His eyes widen. His pulse jumps. He is staring at Sai’s hand resting atop of his.

Sai moves his thumb. A gentle touch against the soft flesh between Naruto’s thumb and index finger. It is an innocent motion. It is also an intimate one.

“Uh,” Naruto says.

Sai thinks he might say _I am a much wiser choice than Sasuke. My loyalty to Konoha is beyond question. I am not a traitor. Far better to give your heart to someone who cannot betray it than a boy who has betrayed it again and again_.

He has learned enough to not give these thoughts voice. They sit instead at the back of his throat, true but not helpful. Gathering dust right above the seal that ensures he keeps his secrets. Konoha’s secrets. For the good of the village.

“I can leave,” Sai suggests. He doesn’t move his hand.

Naruto’s eyes flash up to him, still wide. Very, very blue.

Sai has a watercolour kit with a vivid cerulean. He thinks he could capture the look in Naruto’s eyes if he tried: the glaze of tears replaced with endless blue, the flare of pupils dilating in unconscious interest.

“You can stay,” Naruto says finally. He draws the words out, as if he is unsure about saying them even as they leave his mouth. “Since you brought me ramen.”

Sai smiles again. He asks if Naruto can show him the rest of his apartment and Naruto scrambles to oblige.

It is, in the end, a successful mission. Sai thinks this quite clearly when Naruto presses a clumsy kiss to his lips in the dingy living room, kicking a stray cereal box out of the way as he maneuvers Sai back against a wall. His breath is warm and his tongue tastes like broth. The hair that looked so unkempt before feels soft, almost silky, as Sai cards his fingers through it.

He only leaves because Naruto sends him away. “I’m not – Just not yet, okay?”

Sai smiles and nods. His lips feel swollen. Well-kissed.

The _yet_ is his marker of success.

When he trails back down the stairs, he notices that his pulse rate has spiked. The skin at his hip tingles. He can still feel the ghost of Naruto’s hands skimming the planes of his torso, his fingers digging hard against Sai’s hip bones. Sai notices every shift of fabric against his body, as if the seams of his clothes have been wired to provide small electrical charges on contact.

Remarkable, he thinks. He expected a physical response. The underlying – Sai struggles to place it – _lightness_ , however, the gentle humming underneath his skin. That is unexpected. It is not, he thinks, entirely unpleasant.

When Sai arrives at his apartment, he searches out his watercolour kit. The street scene had called to him at first, but, for now, he will concentrate on cerulean. The shocked widening of eyes. Pupils flaring. Lips that are insistent and attentive. The soft, hot skin right below the curve of his jaw where Naruto’s pulse jumps just underneath his skin. Sai knows: he pressed his mouth to that point. It tasted like heat and salt and the particular _Naruto_ quality that does not yet have a name. A far better taste than unspoken words and an ink-dark seal.

A successful mission. A second will be necessary if he is to achieve his aim. A third, perhaps. An on-going assignment, he decides, of indefinite duration.

One corner of his mouth lifts upwards as his brush moves against the page, layering blue upon blue. It has to be just right.

 


End file.
